“Show him in at once,” ordered the Colonel. An instant later a very brisk little man, with red cheeks, black moustache and side whiskers, entered the room.
“Doctor Robinson O’Hanlenne,” announced the Colonel, who proceeded to explain briefly the circumstances to the new arrival. From the Colonel’s narrative it appeared that two of his workmen had been felling trees and laying out certain ground in a distant and hitherto unused portion of his estate. While thus engaged they had found the cave with the two inanimate forms carefully wrapped in rugs lying within. The Colonel told graphically the terror of the men as the supposed corpses revived, and their flight when a horse and carriage were demanded by Kearns.
“A horse and carriage!” exclaimed the Doctor, with a smile.
“Precisely; a horse and carriage!”
And both laughed.
“The two men,” continued the Colonel, “ran to the foreman. Fortunately I happened to be with him. At the men’s story I hurried to the cave. The peculiar and elaborate appointments of it astonished me. In a little side recess I found some curious notes and papers bearing on the subject of mesmeric forces and suspension of animation. From the ground I picked up a piece of money. It bore the date eighteen hundred and seventy-six. ‘Come,’ said I to myself, ‘this piece of money must have been coined at the time of the Presidency of the famous soldier, General Grant. Such money is surely not in general circulation now!’ All of these strange occurrences began to give me a faint hint of the truth. Such cases are not entirely unknown to our modern science, I believe, although the duration of the sleep in this instance exceeds anything yet reported.”
“Quite so,” commented Dr. O’Hanlenne.
“I started on a hunt for my involuntary guests,” continued the Colonel, with a smile at Kearns and the Professor. “On the Pemberton road I luckily encountered Mrs. Merriweather and her daughter, who had met two men who asked after strange places. These men had actually made inquiries for a horse and carriage.”
Both the Colonel and the Doctor broke into a guffaw.
“Oh, yes,” interjected the Professor. “I remember the old woman—a queer sort of person who talked about fourteen and fifteen o’clock and had never heard of a Presidential election.”